A conference on Europe’s population in the 1990s was held at the London School of Economics in 1993. The proceedings are in the process of being edited for publication. This is a preview of the main findings.
Marriage rates have been falling throughout Europe since the 1970s. The general increase in cohabitation has been partly responsible for the general reduction of marriage rates and the increase in mean age at marriage. Cohabitation remains much less common in Eastern and Southern Europe. Countries in Eastern Europe traditionally had, and still have, younger marriage ages than in the West. Cohabitation had changed its characteristics; the very poor and the divorced being still particularly prone to cohabit but there are more ‘nubile’ cohabitations which resemble married couples. However, cohabitation still tends to be more fragile and less fertile than marital unions. Divorce is increasing. Because of high divorce rates and of births outside marriage, single parent families now account for between 5% and 17% of all families in different countries.
In 1991, the number of legally resident foreigners in Western Europe was about 15.4 million, just over a third of whom were economically active. In the EC (most of Western Europe’s population) 35% of foreigners were from other EC countries, 65% were ‘third country nationals’. Foreign population in Eastern Europe may be around half a million. During the 1980s and 1990s foreign population have generally increased (with the main exception of France, because of high rates of naturalisation), with flows increasing particularly since 1985. Germany had changed from being a net loser of foreign population in 1980 to a substantial net gainer. Former emigration countries (in the Mediterranean region, and Finland) have become important immigration countries. Some Eastern European countries have also experienced strong rises in immigrant numbers. Mass migration from East to West is now unlikely. But calculations of a ‘natural level of immigration’ suggested that about 700,000 emigrants might be expected to leave the former Soviet Union each year, about half the level observed today. Pressures on Europe’s southern frontier will be more persistent, leading to an extended debate about the relationship between development assistance and migration.
During the sixties, all the European countries underwent a slowing down in the reduction of death rates. But after 1970, mortality trends in the East of Europe and in the other countries became really divergent. Progress resumed in Western countries when the situation continued to worsen in the East. The former East Germany had shown a less acute mortality crisis, and mortality in Albania and Yugoslavia, starting from very unfavourable levels, had improved. In Bulgaria and Hungary, mortality trends had been particularly bad during the last twenty years. Comparisons with England and Wales, and France show that the mortality crisis was particularly important for males at working ages. Mortality for almost all the causes of death had increased in the Eastern countries, especially cardio-vascular diseases, cerebro-vascular diseases and cancer, particularly in Hungary. Only deaths from infectious disease showed a downward trend.
Trends in fertility and its economic environment have been complex. Both the relative stability of the birth rate since the mid-1970s in Northern Europe and the steep falls in Southern Europe were accompanied by trends toward later marriage, more divorce and a growing proportion of women in paid employment Economic opportunities play an important part in these family formation decisions, particularly women’s earning opportunities relative to men’s, the relative gains made by single, married and cohabiting households, the effect of welfare on fertility. Birth rates were inversely related over time to average pay; low fertility itself raises workforce participation. There was a strong relationship between the increase in divorce rates and the percent of married women in employment.
Responses to the European Values Study of 1990 showed marked differences in values between persons in different forms of living arrangements (e.g. living with parents, single, married and cohabiting). A major problem was whether the relationship between values and living arrangements was primarily due to a selection process, whereby people with particular values favoured different living arrangements, or an affirmation process whereby people in different living arrangements acquired distinctive attitudes. Generally speaking, the biggest differences were observed between those cohabiting and those who were married. Married people were the most conservative group, the most religious giving more positive responses to marital fidelity, the importance of children, paying taxes, opposing drug misuse. In some surprising areas, especially religious attitudes which emphasised individuality, cohabitants gave more favourable responses.
Are projections of European population decline serious demography or false alarm? The simple United Nations projections for different components of Europe (final TFR in median variant=1.8) were compared with EC projections and Eurostat scenarios, which allowed for immigration. Even with zero migration, the UN and EC projected only a minor population decline to 2020 with considerable differences between Northern Europe (hardly any decline) and Southern Europe (more substantial decline, especially in Spain and Italy, also in Germany). The Eurostat scenarios forecast decline in population only when the ‘pessimistic’ migration, mortality and fertility assumptions were chosen. The fertility assumptions were, as usual, the most important. Those who desired to increase the supply of ‘home-grown’ citizens to check depopulation were in danger of falling into contradictory attitudes. Working mothers had been criticised. Now improvement of conditions for working mothers was urged. Instead, take care of the people, and ‘population decline’ will take of itself.
Do higher levels of family benefits have a positive effect on fertility by encouraging parents to have more children, or do higher levels of benefits unintentionally undermine the family by encouraging marital breakdown and welfare dependency? A major problem was the contrary expectations arising from economic theory. Family welfare policies could increase fertility by reducing its costs. Alternatively, or possibly at the same time, they could tend to reduce fertility, or increase it in inappropriate ways, by encouraging divorce, single parent status and helping to create an “underclass”. American and British studies suggested that higher levels of welfare benefits do have a certain effect on families but were often contradictory. Contributors: Kathleen Kiernan, John Salt, France Meslé, John Ermisch, Guy Moors, Heather Joshi, Anne Gauthier. European Population in the 1990s edited by David Coleman for Oxford University Press.